[an error occurred while processing this directive] Jeff Drew Interview - Part2 sardaukar_siet: So, Fusion was a two man job at first ? Jim Drew: 3 Jim Drew: Well.. the Amiga version was 2 (Joe and I). The PC version was done with 3 people. sardaukar_siet: the first publicly available release was .. ? sardaukar_siet: Hi, Jeff ! ClockWise: Can you tell us about that? Jim Drew: First public release of FUSION-PC was July 1998 sardaukar_siet: Mr Drew, Jeff is another of our co-workers Jim Drew: Hello Jeff. Im watching but probably not asking anything. Jim Drew: ... and don't call me "Mr. Drew" please... we are friends here. :-) sardaukar_siet: ok sardaukar_siet: so, 1998 was the big step... what did u expect at first ? Jim Drew: I was not sure... we hate the PC (even now)... but we knew the market was big. sardaukar_siet: And shortly after, what was your balance ? Jim Drew: balance? sardaukar_siet: of the results Jim Drew: Well... in the first 3 hours after we released the demo, we crashed our ISP so bad, that they pulled the plug on our site. :-) sardaukar_siet: Cool sardaukar_siet: That's a definite sign Jim Drew: yeah.. really. :-) Jim Drew: We have had more than 3 million downloads of the demo version since then. sardaukar_siet: At the time, your main competitors were ... ? Jim Drew: Nobody. sardaukar_siet: Oh Jim Drew: We still don't have any. :-) sardaukar_siet: Then SoftMac and Executor came later on ? Jim Drew: No, Executor was around.. but it is not an emulator. Jim Drew: SoftMac was not around. sardaukar_siet: Executor is NOT an emulator ?? Jim Drew: Basillisk was not around for the PC. Jim Drew: No, you can't run any MAC OS on it. sardaukar_siet: Well, that's due to the design of it... Jim Drew: It has its own OS, and you can only run programs that it supports. sardaukar_siet: They decided not no use Mac ROMs sardaukar_siet: They are compatible with MAC OS specs, up to System 7.0 sardaukar_siet: They OS just isn't MAC OS 8 compatible Jim Drew: That's what they say.. but I can write an app for 7.0 that crashes quite easily. sardaukar_siet: Well, it's still a beta ClockWise: Can you tell us about the legal action against Christian Bauer/Shapeshifter? sardaukar_siet: Yes, the legal action... Jim Drew: Basillisk on the other hand... arg.. that is a sore subject with me. sardaukar_siet: You don't want to discuss it ? Jim Drew: Sure... Christian Bauer is a theif... ClockWise: Can you elaborate a bit? Jim Drew: When we were making EMPLANT updates, ShapeShifter appeared. Joe and I disassembled it and found about 60% AMAX II code, 30% our code, and 10% Apple's code. sardaukar_siet: Jesus Jim Drew: As time went on, it became more EMPLANT code and less AMAX code. ... and I mean BYTE for BYTE, including routines that we put in on purpose that do absolutely nothing to see if he would copy them... and he did. sardaukar_siet: Damn... Jim Drew: Christian made about $400,000 in shareware fees for his emulation. Jim Drew: It was all stolen. ClockWise: Have you been at all successful in legal actions against Bauer? (it seems not) Jim Drew: I provided our original source and his disassembled code to people that know assembly language, and were respected in the industry, for a comparison. The result: it's stolen. Jim Drew: No.. he is a student, and suing over seas is nearly impossible, unless you are suing a company. sardaukar_siet: That sucks Jim Drew: Yes, it does. I would like to see Basillisk2 removed from existance. Christian learned enough from looking at our code to write a new emulation. sardaukar_siet: Did you ever engaged in any dialog with him ? Jim Drew: Yes, I have letters from Christian stating that he will stop producing and selling ShapeShifter. ClockWise: Not about removing Basilisk though? Jim Drew: If Christian could have been stopped several years ago, Basillisk2 would not exist today. sardaukar_siet: You'll be happy to know that we plan to interview Christian next Jim Drew: I am sure he will deny everything, but I have still have the proof and anyone is welcome to review it. sardaukar_siet: It seems that the emulation business is very harsh... SoftMac also gave you headaches, right ? Jim Drew: No.. Darek is just a bit strange (business wise). He knows enough about the Macintosh to make an emulation, and he thinks that his almighty speed discovery makes his emulation the fastest thing on the planet... which is not true. sardaukar_siet: I would like to do benchmarks too... If E-Maculation did them, they would be fair. What do u think, guys ? (J,C) Jim Drew: I welcome any benchmarks. Jim Drew: Motorola and Intel CPUs address data differently. When you fetch 4 bytes of data on the 68K CPU, you get all 4 bytes in a row. Fetching 4 bytes on an X86 gives you 4 bytes that are byte-swapped. sardaukar_siet: that's the low/big endian issue, right ? Jim Drew: Yes, little endian vs. big endian. Jim Drew: If you run your emulation backwards in memory, then the intel data is already swapped for use, making it a lot faster... that is what SoftMac does. The problem with this is that only the Intel CPUs can cache backwards. Jim Drew: Also, since the Mac uses DMA data, you can't DMA backwards... and that is why SoftMac will never have sound. :-) sardaukar_siet: AHAHAH... ClockWise: They can still promise sound..... ;0 Jim Drew: BTW, Joe and I also wrote the world first Intel Pentium processor emulation... so, we already had experience with this. sardaukar_siet: Pentium emulation... ? Jim Drew: Yes, for the Amiga. sardaukar_siet: oh Jim Drew: Running it backwards was much faster... but we lost sound, serial, and a few other important features. :-) sardaukar_siet: What was the emulation business like after all of the current contenders were released ? Jim Drew: Pretty nasty really. Everyone claimed that they were the fastest. We didn't care about being the fastest.. we wanted to be 100% compatible. It doesn't matter if you have the fastest car on the block if you can't steer it! sardaukar_siet: Why DOS ? Jim Drew: We didn't care about Windows support either... in fact, we never wanted to support Windows. sardaukar_siet: But you know that dos is dead these days, right ? Jim Drew: Windows still uses DOS. sardaukar_siet: But running FUSION DOS in Windows crashes Jim Drew: The only advantage Windows has is the user friendly factor for programmers. Jim Drew: Huh? Running FUSION DOS does not crash in Windows... it was designed for it. sardaukar_siet: A LOT of people mailed me stating it... It didn't for me ! Jim Drew: You don't have to write a million device drivers for different types of hardware, Windows takes care of that problem for you. Jim Drew: I have never seen anyone say that. sardaukar_siet: Well, some guy mailed me about WORM too... maybe it's bogus ! ;) ClockWise: What does Apple think of you? Darek? Christian? Are they at all concerned about emulation? sardaukar_siet: Yes, how does Apple react to emulators ? They are VERY picky (take a look at beOS and the clone makers, for instance!) Jim Drew: Apple is mad at Darek. I really can't go into detail about that. sardaukar_siet: ok Next

[an error occurred while processing this directive]